It’s time to dive back into the hap inc universe and play a game about everybody’s favorite magician/performer, Mr. Success! A frequent character in the Hidden My Game By Mom series, Mr. Success has a lot to live up to in terms of tricks, especially with this new audience! How will his performance go? Can Jay and I learn anything from his showmanship? All this and more for Hidden My Game By Mom Gaiden: Mr. Success!

I’ve been playing a lot of FutureGrind recently and decided to upload some videos of my platinum scores. No commentary and just the successful runs, so maybe they’re not appropriate for this forum, but here they are:

The sequel to the popular-but-awkward Sonic Adventure is considered by many fans to be one of the franchise’s high points, if not the best in the franchise. Its port to GameCube, SA2: Battle was many young gamers’ introduction to Sonic. All of this marks SA2 as one of nostalgia’s best friends, because it’s actually not very good.
These days a counter-reaction has built that instead says the game is a load of crap, but having LPed Sonic 06 first, I would argue that’s not true either. Most things aren’t one extreme over the other.

Sonic Adventure 2 saw several leaps forward for the hedgehog: a more focused and mature narrative, actual motion capture for cutscenes, a playable Eggman in a mainline game, Sonic’s own evil-ish doppelganger in Shadow the Hedgehog, wrong-headed sex appeal with Rouge the Bat, and a brand deal with the now-defunct Soap shoes. However it still controls awkwardly, it’s still voiced silly, the motion capture makes it even goofier, and it continues Sonic Adventure’s penchant for making you play other characters, but goes the extra mile to make the speedy characters the grand minority in played stages compared to the far-less enjoyable other characters.
Knuckles’ and Rouge’s stages, though they would have been fun to control in a different stage type, are obnoxious treasure hunting stages in way-too-large levels with the radar needlessly constricted to one object at a time. Tails and Eggman, somewhat inexplicably, take on E102 Gamma’s play style from the first Adventure to generally frustrating effect. Sonic and Shadow manage to carry on the tradition of fun, speedy gameplay, but they have far fewer stages than the others, and even they drag by the halfway point. All of this makes sense when you learn that originally Sonic, Knuckles and Eggman were going to be the only playable characters.SA2 is its own kind of awkward mess. Potential highs turn to lows, and whatever speed you gain turns into a slog. Ultimately you’re left with a thoroughly middling game that just has great word-of-mouth. Guess it’s a Sonic game.

This is a straightforward, casual playthrough of SA2 streamed on YouTube and supported by my Patreon patrons. Returning from my previous livestreamed Sonic LPs are my co-commentators Mugiwara Yoshi and Jiggly Jacob, who have their own respective histories with the game. And yes, I was one of the kids who became huge Sonic fans because of this game. We all have our pasts.
I would argue Shadow was cool, damnit. For only this one game, though.

Today, it’s time for Jay and I to make sure our moms aren’t using the phone so we can go online with Hypnospace Outlaw! This is an adventure game that takes place in an alternate version of the 90’s, where you play an internet enforcer who must keep the peace across the online communities. While there are puzzles to solve and stories to discover, I think the primary charm of the game is in exploring these fake websites and the incredible aesthetic work. It’s still a fun time regardless, so sit back and relax as we take you to surf the world wide web!

Well now that the site’s back up, let’s enjoy a day out with Pikuniku! It’s a puzzle-exploration game about a little red man who can only interact with the world by kicking, and he’s got a lot to do with just one verb! He’s got to fix a bridge, scare some birds, puzzle-platform and so much more! This vibrant world is bursting with charm so let’s have fun!

It’s time for Jay and I to return to Gensokyo to talk about more Touhou doujin games with Touhou Luna Nights! Luna Nights is a Metroidvania game from Metroidvania indie darlings Team Ladybug, who hit the scene with a surprise Shin Megami Tensei tie-in game in 2017. Now they’ve returned with a new game that takes Sakuya’s time-stopping powers and affinity for throwing knives into a new genre! Luna Nights is a really neat take on the world of Touhou and a solid Metroidvania to boot, definitely something worth checking out!

Put up a couple casual livestreamed LP things over the weekend. First is part 1 of a playthrough of Deltarune: Chapter 1. There’ll be five parts, all of which will be quite long considering the game itself is relatively brief. There’s a lot to rub your face on.
I was considering not posting it here, but fuck it, it’s the casual thread for a reason. And the game’s a hoot anyway.

And yesterday I streamed a tat-assisted unskill run of Link’s Crossbow Training. For those curious of the game but were never willing to spend the money on it and still aren’t because you shouldn’t.